Hatter's Coat
by blackrosemystic
Summary: A lady's coat buttons on the opposite side from a man's, so the jacket that Hatter gave Alice was never actually his coat. And he had very good reasons to not want it back.


Hatter stared at the very wet girl in front of him. There was something about her...people in Wonderland don't look like her anymore. Not for a long time. He shook his head. It would do him no good trying to remember the times when his people looked like Alice. Like they had nothing to hide. That wasn't his world anymore.

He doesn't tell her that he would have bought her from Ratty, whatever the pathetic creature had asked for. He didn't tell her that he would protect her through anything the Queen would try to throw at them. He didn't tell her that the last person to wear the coat was his mother. He didn't say that she had stopped wearing it when they started hiding; that he had given Alice a coat woven of Hope and Idealism and Strength. Hatter could remember every time he had ever touched the thing, how it had filled him with the fleeting golden _Belief_, how those sparks of courage had been snuffed out with the light in his mother's eyes. And he remembers now, when he looks at her, just how good it felt to have something to fight for.

Hatter doesn't tell her about coming home to an empty flat, or the grey-brown of the emotionless boxes that were methodically packed and tagged, and systematically set away. He doesn't explain that he met Dodo when he was trying to find out where it had all gone or what he'd done to get it back; the _real_ reason that he had gotten stuck straddling the lines, running a Tea Shoppe. Never mentioned that handing her the coat had been the third time he'd ever dared to touch it. He watches as she pulls it tighter and lets out a breath. He doesn't have to tell her. She is fresh, she is new...but he can't fight the feeling that she _knows._

They've fallen – of course they've fallen, his accursed luck – but they weren't Jabberwock food, they didn't seem to be injured, and as Hatter's finger brushed the velvet cuff he started. It almost felt like the fire of passion, true passion, _real _passion that burned through veins and set souls alight....the kind of passion that Wonderlanders didn't seem to have anymore...

He didn't say anything when he saw the Coat hanging on the branch outside of Charlie's shelter. She was gone. His own fault, really, Everyone who wore the coat eventually ended up in the Casino. His mind revolted at the thought, and he set his jaw. That coat deserved someone who could live up it's depth. It's rich vibrant color, it's durability that managed to keep the plush warmth practical. He had finally found the girl who was supposed to have it, and he wasn't about to wait for impossible 'someone else' who might come along. Alice was different. Without another glance at the maroon velvet he was saddling a horse. She had started out with nothing to hide. Then they'd found the ring, and all the plans had changed. Except one. The Queen had taken enough from Hatter. She didn't get to have anything more. Especially not Alice.

He hadn't been at camp when she'd put the coat back on after getting back from the fiasco of 'bargaining' with the Queen, but he knew then; the coat accenting her profile as the wind blew past her on the hillside. There was no gong back for him. He wondered if there ever had been, and doubted the possibility of any other outcome. That coat belonged to her, and so did he; heart, mind and body, and he _would_ see her safely home. Back to where she belonged. Out of a world where the truth had became so dangerous that the only way to stay safe was to dilute it with the lies of a quicksilver tongue. Hatter wasn't proud of what he'd become, but he'd learned much and he could help her. If she wanted to go back? He could do it. It would take some string pulling and casing of favors, but he'd get it. After all, this was Alice. Hatter could feel the courage sparking again, and he let the warmth pour through him for the first time that he cared to remember. Nothing else really mattered; it was for Alice, and it was her father. Hatter couldn't pretend to not understand. He didn't like it but he understood. With another look towards Alice on the hill, and an unfamiliar aching heat in his chest Hatter left to set up a meeting with Caterpillar.

The coat was glowing in the slow warmth of the afternoon as she road off with Jack. Prince not-so-charming had even come with a white horse. But Hatter hadn't lost hope. She hadn't taken off the jacket. He couldn't go with her. Not to the Casino, certainly not to meet Caterpillar. He couldn't risk it.

Wait. Risk? Of all the things he couldn't risk, Alice was the most important. The cool fog of silvered lies and survival was at war with the foreign sparks in his heart. He knew the safe thing – go to the hills, rejoin the Resistance, be an informant. His thoughts drifted back to the clearing minutes before, when she'd been so close he feel the heat rising from her. They'd been so close. Hatter sighed. He wasn't even sure why he kept pretending that leaving her was an option. He'd follow her, because someone had to make sure nothing happened to her. Alice _would_ change Wonderland, she would fulfill the unspoken dreams of everyone she'd met since falling through the Looking Glass. Maybe even his.

He caught the faint undertones of velvet that had inserted themselves into the scent of her as Alice threw her arms around him and pulled him close. The fire that pounded through his veins was like nothing he'd ever felt before, mixed with the ice-cold chill of relief and the sparks that came whenever his skin touched hers; all offset with delicate press of velvet. It was all he could do to stand there and _feel_ before he realized that now was...really _not_ the time. His accursed luck.

Loss...Loss came with ideals. Hatter knew that well. Any Wonderlander knew that well. And Alice was turning out to be more of a Wonderlander than he'd thought; but that didn't stop him from cursing the Casino, the Hearts,and everything that went with them as he reached out and took hold of the dark velvet. They couldn't stay in the Casino, they had to get out now, while chaos was still in effect and they still had a chance. Hatter pulled her up and away pushing away the thought that perhaps there was a thread of Sorrow hidden in the coat somewhere.

The Casino had fallen, and Charlie had saved them all. He stood beside Alice, watchful and ready. He knew the brutal laws of Wonderland. She stood tall, the velvet seemed to shimmer in the smoky air. Here was Alice: Hope, Idealism and Strength. She had delivered a new era to Wonderland, becoming the Alice of a new Legend, and hopefully a legend with an ending closer to 'happily ever after.' A finger was such a small thing to take to secure a shift power, and Hatter had long ago learned the art of a convincing bluff was simply to be telling the truth. The truth after a fashion, of course. And now? Now Jack was King, and Carpenter had been found before he was lost and Alice...Alice was going home.

Hatter took a deep breath of the dusty air and tried to remember the thrill of victory, determined to ignore the sudden emptiness that had seeped in.

The burgandy hues reflected off the garish red of Jack's suit. Hatter had managed to gain her trust, but he was never what she came for. He wasn't sure if he was happy that she'd seen him or not. He hadn't come to say goodbye, but he was a good liar. He wasn't actually sure why he had come. She couldn't stay here, he wouldn't _let_ her stay here. She belonged in her world, where honesty was more than just a mixer. He shut out the hollow voice that reminded him of what it felt like to lost that coat, and he bid her well. He was a good liar. But even he wasn't good enough to pretend that it didn't matter when she thrust the velvet into his hands. He could barely respond against the rush of cold that flooded his fingers. He wasn't even sure what he'd said... something about pizza?

And she was gone.

The coat sat for a while, Hatter couldn't bring himself to hang it up. It simply rested on the desk (the only piece of furniture worth salvaging from his Tea Shoppe) but when the sun reached it, it seemed to take on a life all of it's own, glowing ember-red, a fire that could never truly be put out. At first, Hatter had stayed away. It wasn't his. He didn't touch it. But as the days went by, he slipped closer and closer to it. Until the day that the afternoon sun found him clutching it like a lifeline.

That was when Hatter noticed. He was warm. Not a warm from being properly dressed for the cold, but _warm_, a pounding heat that had been slowly growing as the days passed. Warm because it flared when he held the coat and though abut Alice. How the sparks of courage had been simmering with the steady heat of loyalty and admiration and so many something Hatter couldn't hope to begin to name them until they had all somehow become a scorching inferno that would not allow him to sit still for any longer. He had to find her.

Their mouths met, and the inferno spread, leaving his fingers tingling as he pressed closer to the sweet softness of her lips. She tasted of forgotten summer afternoons, and days when tea was really just _tea_, and evenings by the fire, and a favourite story book read aloud. She tasted of glacial winds and hundred-story drops and running for your life. She was the beautiful fleeting split-second moment of stillness between the beats of a humming bird's wings.

That's when her realized: it didn't matter that he hadn't brought the coat back with him. For all that it was, inspiring and awesome, it wasn't even a _fraction_ of this. Because this was real. And this...was _Love._


End file.
